Do Republican Politicians Really "Fear" Efforts to Slow Global Warming Will Cost the Jobs of Miners and Hurt the Economy?

Tuesday, 06 May 2014 13:45

In an article on the release of a report that documents the impact to date of climate change on the United States, the NYT told readers:

"Other Republicans concede that climate change caused by human activity is real, but nonetheless fear — as do some Democrats — that the president’s policies will destroy jobs for miners and hurt the broader economy."

While politicians obviously say they are concerned about job loss for miners and damage to the economy, does the NYT know that they really "fear" this prospect? Few Republicans or Democrats expressed concern about surface top mining that both causes damage to the environment and displaced tens of thousands of underground miners. If they feared the destruction of jobs for miners it would have been reasonable to insist that environmental restrictions be tightly enforced in order to limit this practice. The fact that they didn't suggests that concern about jobs for miners is not a high priority for these Republicans.

Similarly, global warming is causing large amounts of economic damage as illustrated in this report. Weather events that are at least partially attributable to global warming have already caused tens of billions of dollars of damage to homes and businesses. Anyone who was concerned about the damage to the economy caused by efforts to slow global warming would presumably also be concerned about the damage to the economy from global warming.

It seems unlikely that the politicians the NYT claims are fearful about the economy have carefully weighed the two effects. It is worth noting that in the context of an economy that is operating well below its full employment level of output, as is the case for the United States economy, spending money to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be almost costless. We would be putting people to work who would not otherwise be employed.

The reality is the NYT has no clue as to whether the politicians to whom it refers are actually concerned about coal miners' jobs and the economy. They only that they say they are concerned. If they wanted to stop measures that would reduce the profits of the oil and gas industries, it is likely that they would express concerns over jobs and the economy whether or not they had them. It sounds much better for a politician to say that he is concerned about a coal miner's job than Exxon-Mobil's profit.

Rather than telling readers what politicians' actually think, the NYT should focus on telling readers what they do and what they say.